This year we particularly welcome our faithful reviewers, new faces and expertise, and are delighted that Debra Klomp Ching, once part of the Rhubarb team, is returning to represent Klomp Ching Gallery from the USA. We are proud to say that our on line booking system and real time folio event not only brings together photographers and reviewers, but reviewers and reviewers…. Congratulations to Debra and Darrin Ching, our first Rhubarb marriage! Or at least the only one we know about….

Dedicated followers will have noticed that we have decided to consolidate our interests and are now working under the title of The UK's International Photographic Review.

The decision to make this change was informed by time, resources, shortage of venues, our plans for growth as a company and doing what we are best at – the same sorts of decisions faced by the photographers we aim to serve. Looking at the feedback from last year and the current issues of concern to the fine art photography world, we've returned to the core of our expertise – the business of the image.

In a new venue, appropriately at Aston Business School, the review will be intimate, with reviewers and photographers sharing the same hotel – we hope this will create a real sense of participation and also a shared respect for downtime. At the time of writing we are still exploring the potential for the new venue so don't take your eyes from the website for any length of time.

The theme for this year – of course, Talkin' Business - allows us to concentrate our focus on the issues facing photographers as they grapple with the increasing complexities of an image world which is both potent and problematic. Informed by our all year round program of mentoring courses, at different levels of confidence and competence, and the knowledge of the experts we have worked with since the event last summer, we've put together a program which puts the visiting photographers at the core of our concerns.

Developing your value as a photographic artist, the demise of copyright and changing trends in museum collecting, form the issues in The Value of the Image, this year's extraordinary Rhubarb Review seminar presented by Simon Roberts – Award Winning Photographer, London, UK; Stephen Mayes – International Image Forecaster, New York, USA, and Alison Nordstrom – Curator of Photographs at George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film in Rochester, New York . Chaired by Rhonda Wilson, Creative Director of Rhubarb-Rhubarb, the event is essential listening for anyone wishing to have a future in the fine art photographic world. Thursday July 31st at 1pm – booking is essential.

On Saturday August 2, an evening Portfolio Promenade will profile the photographers at the Review to not only the international reviewers, but also to invited new potential image buyers. Run by Lorna Mary Webb – Rhubarb's Company Manager, for the first time last year at Rhubarb, on a model shared by Chris Rauschenberg from the Photo Lucida review in Portland, Oregon, the event was a resounding success, and we are busy promoting the 2008 Promenade to partners. Cocktails, music and a renowned guest to welcome all, the evening promises to be even more enjoyable than last year, where £8000 of prints were sold. The event is open to photographers attending on Saturday and Sunday attendants if the latter group arrive by 4pm on Saturday August 2. It will include the Rhubarb Bursary winners from the West Midlands and students from the final year of the BA Photography Course at Hereford College of Art.

Branding workshops created by James Mannox, a former Rhubarb reviewer as art director on Pure magazine, and now a half of Pretty Mannox branding and design studio, are also a new item for the 2008 event. Currently we are looking at ways of holding a show of work by participating photographers at the review, with one image per person, to go alongside our showreel on screen, by final year students at Hereford College of Art. All this and hopefully more will be unraveled during the next few weeks, putting you, the photographer, at the centre of the Review.

Our thanks go to the Rhubarb team, interns, assistants, technicians, designers, partners and funders, without whom this event, which grew from a very few people with global aspirations and a hunger to profile photographic talent, would not be possible.

We look forward to Talkin' Business with you at Rhubarb in 2008.

Rhonda Wilson MBE
Creative Director